The story opens in (true life) England 1984, on picketing and protesting Miners. “Solidarity Forever – the Union makes us strong!”
Down in London, Joe (George MacKay) is gay and he’s “never met a lesbian before” while Steph (Faye Marsay) the lesbian, has “never met anyone who irons their jeans.” And so the misfits join forces with Mark (Ben Schnetzer) a young homosexual who loves to fire up a cause just for the sake of well, just firing up a cause….he’s young and rambunctious. When the POST sports a headline of “Police Clash with Miners” Mark has found his new focus…forming “L. G. S. M.” Lesbian and gays support miners.
The movie feels like a syrupy and saturated “Glee” meets “The Full Monty” with its overhyped soundtrack that has the knack of kicking in at the very moment you most need to feel your emotions and not need to have them dictated to you. Anytime silence is needed, instead we get the upsweep of loud noise to drown out any emotions that the filmmaker apparently feels we’re incapable of feeling.
Imelda Stanton has the role of woman-about-the-mining-town and Bill Nighy is suitable in his role as a man-about-the-mining-town also in need of coming to terms with his own truth. Sadly this could have been a great movie with the right director. ♕ ♚